


Cat's-Paw

by skepwith



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Aslan Is a Patriarchal Douchebag, Female Anti-Hero, Gen, Implied Bestiality, Minor Jadis/Maugrim, White Witch POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 15:32:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12345513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skepwith/pseuds/skepwith
Summary: The White Witch tells her version of what happened.His own rules were His undoing. He loves making rules: thou shalt this, thou shalt not that. It was one of the first things He did when He came to this world, back in the beginning.When there was nothing here but darkness, He sang the world into being. So they say. I tell you this: worlds come and go all the time. They die and are reborn every minute, without His help or anyone else’s. A gardener can prune a tree, but that doesn’t make him its creator. My Enemy is a horticulturalist of universes—He guides them, shapes them, but He does not birth them.I was here, at the beginning. I saw it.





	Cat's-Paw

Winter is the best season. Everything is muffled and quiet. Sleighs skim across the surface of the snow, runners swishing and whispering under jingling harness bells. The hills and forests lie covered in white, and tiny animal footprints appear overnight. The land is sleepy, cozy. It knows it doesn’t need to get out of bed anytime soon. Maybe never. I wrap my land in winter like a baby is wrapped in swaddling.

I love my country, so it’s always winter here.

My Enemy does not love the quiet cold as I do. His eyes have never been burnt by a dying sun. He is restless, improving, on the move. He campaigns relentlessly for spring.

Not in person, of course. He wouldn’t get His paws dirty. Instead He undermines my reign in sneaky little ways. He sends messages to the trees, who whisper amongst themselves, call me _witch_ and _tyrant_. He fans the flames of restlessness with stories of His future coming (He’s always on His way, never arriving). Foolish fauns listen and become obstreperous, robins grow unruly. Don’t even get me started on the beavers.

I am surrounded by ill-wishers and would-be assassins. Against these fanatics and malcontents I have taken strong measures—extreme measures, even. I would do worse to keep my country out of His jaws. The Lion will hold no sway in Narnia while I am Queen.

***

He walks to His death on soft, heavy paws, His mane hanging low. He has come alone, as promised, at the appointed hour. The crowd around me rustles and murmurs as we watch Him approach the Stone Table, meek as a lamb.

My people have gathered under a black velvet sky and a pregnant moon. Our congregation is a varied one, of all shapes and sizes, covered in fur, feathers, scales, and mottled skin, on black claws and bald grey feet and wide leathery wings. Male, female, both, and neither, we shriek and whistle and gibber, unable to contain our excitement. One of the minotaurs throws back his head and bellows joyfully. A ritual of this magnitude has not been performed here in many, many generations.

The Lion closes His eyes so He doesn’t have to look at us, the deformed and the defective. All my beautiful monsters.

Under the cool moonlight, our torches send shadows leaping and clawing in all directions. At my nod, the hags Agda and Oona emerge from the darkness and take their positions, hobbling with what dignity their age will allow. Their limbs are like sticks, their skin all ash-dusted wrinkles, their hair white clouds. Agda’s eyes are milky and Oona cannot hear, but they move unerringly to either side of the Table. No one knows if they are sisters or lovers—perhaps both—and no one but I knows their age, for they have been around as long as anyone can remember.

The two hags raise their thin arms above their heads. Orange torchlight ripples across the slab’s pitted, rune-carved surface. “Let the sacrifice be laid upon the Stone Table!”

The Lion is seized and bound with ropes. He offers no resistance.

***

His own rules were His undoing. He loves making rules: thou shalt this, thou shalt not that. It was one of the first things He did when He came to this world, back in the beginning.

When there was nothing here but darkness, He sang the world into being. So they say. I tell you this: worlds come and go all the time. They die and are reborn every minute, without His help or anyone else’s. A gardener can prune a tree, but that doesn’t make him its creator. My Enemy is a horticulturalist of universes—He guides them, shapes them, but He does not birth them.

I was here, at the beginning. I saw it.

I had just clawed my way out from amidst the death throes of my own world. It was ancient, glorious, venal, and complex—a civilization collapsing under its own weight. None of my people escaped with me; I am the last of my line. When I came into this new world, I was reborn. Everything here was fresh and fertile, humming with generative energy. But there was no chaos, no wild growth, no mutation. He was a strict midwife. He harnessed this world’s power carefully. Imagine, if you will, a butterfly bursting from its chrysalis…into a terrarium. Such was my arrival in Narnia.

No sooner had he brought forth the world’s creatures, fully formed, from the earth, than he began to lay down rules: man to obey Him, wife to obey husband, animals to obey man. It was an old scheme, and one I’d seen before. My foremother Lilith left a similar prison to consort with wilder gods—or demons, if you prefer. I come from a long line of tricksters and trouble-makers. In my family, to see a rule is to itch to break it, an urge as undeniable as the madman’s compulsion to shout obscenities in the middle of church.

My Enemy set the rules and laid the pieces on the board, claiming the white ones as His own. There was nothing for me to do but choose the black. For Him warmth and courage and nobility, goodness and beauty, everything bright and pure. For me, all that He did not want: the dark, the cold, the damp, that which is awkward and ill-formed, the crooked and bent, the hidden, the despised.

What a fool He was to cast such things aside! They have their own power, too.

For many centuries I lived in the shadows of His world, learning how to shape their magic and letting them shape me in turn. My blood turned as chill as the cold that fed me, my skin as white as the snow which followed in my wake. As I grew more powerful, the kingdom’s dissidents flocked to me—those who were punished and shamed by His laws, and many more who did not care for the rule of man. By then Narnia had been governed by a long line of human kings, as He had decreed. The Lion Himself was long gone. He liked His subjects to make their own mistakes, the better to scold them for it upon His return.

When we took power, we executed the king and his entire line to ensure humans would never oppress us again. And not one of that cursed species set foot in Narnia thereafter, until the boy.

 

I first spied him from the seat of my sleigh as it sped through the forest. He was standing in the snow, gaping witlessly at me as we passed. Rather small and easy to miss, yet utterly outlandish. I called at once to my driver, Ulli, who pulled the reindeer to a halt.

The boy stood uncertainly at the edge of the track, shifting from one foot to another, until I beckoned him and he stumbled through the snow. He wasn’t much taller than Ulli, with short, fair hair and pale eyes. He didn’t look like a harbinger of doom. I rarely pay attention to prophecies of my own destruction—there are so many, all invented by my enemies—but if certain predictions were to be believed, this boy was a dagger pointed at my heart. But only if he hadn’t come alone.

“Come, sit beside me,” I said to him, patting the sleigh’s plush red seat. “You must be cold.” In fact he was shivering, hardly surprising considering how totally unsuitable his clothes were for our climate. His trousers were absurdly short, showing his knobby red knees as Ulli helped him into the sleigh with a wary smile. Ulli knew how dangerous this creature was as well as I.

I wrapped the boy in a corner of my white fur cloak and conjured him a hot drink and his favourite dish. Turkish delight, he called it, a vile-looking sugared jelly in garish colours—revolting. He ate greedily, and talked with his mouth full.

“We all thought Lucy was lying about the wardrobe. Fancy her being right all along!” he said, speckling my furs with chewed-up bits of sweet. His expression turned sulky. “I suppose now I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“There, there,” I said vaguely. “And who is this Lucy?”

“My sister. She’s the youngest. She’s all right, if a bit babyish, but Susan’s no fun and Peter’s an utter prig.”

So there were four of them. Two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve, as my Enemy likes to call them when he’s feeling particularly pompous. One for each of the thrones at Cair Paravel, the stronghold of the old regime. My fingers clenched at the fur in my lap.

The boy prattled on. His sister, it seemed, had been here already and made contact with a faun called Tumnus (no doubt one of my Enemy’s sympathizers). I bit my lip until I could taste blood. The rebellion had already begun.

“You must come visit me at the Winter Palace,” I told the boy, whose name was Edmund. “Bring your sisters and brother. All three of them, understand?” No use hoping they wouldn’t find their way back to our world. This “wardrobe” business had His paw prints all over it. “If you come and live with me, I will make you a Prince, and you will rule as King when I am gone.” It was an absurd promise, but he seemed to have no trouble believing himself destined to rule over a foreign land. “Don’t forget to bring your brother and sisters.”

I sent him on his way before the magic of the food could fade.

Ulli turned the sleigh homeward at once. It slid to a halt inside the Palace gates, the reindeer panting a mist around their antlers. I leapt to the ground and strode across the courtyard, along the path between snow-draped statues. At my arrival, a great white bear lumbered to her feet and shook the snow from her fur, while a pair of ravens circled overhead, crying a harsh greeting. More of my people flowed down the wide steps as the Palace doors swung open—a white tiger, a fur-clad giant, several chattering foxes. One of my servants, an incubus, appeared under the shadow of a stone stag and bowed.

“Summon Maugrim at once!” I commanded.

Maugrim is—was—my Chief of Police, the descendant of a skilled general who had helped me overthrow the old regime. He arrived promptly in the Great Hall, flanked by Ash and Shadow, his second- and third-in-command. All three bowed low, muzzles close to the ground. They were panting but not winded; a wolf can run all day without tiring. Maugrim was the largest of the three, with long, lean haunches and a thick grey coat. “What is your command, my Queen?” he asked.

“Find the faun Tumnus and bring him to me.”

It didn’t take him long. Maugrim was clever and efficient as well as beautiful. The faun was brought in trembling, his delicate hooves tripping on the flagstones. With minimal prompting, he confessed to fraternizing with the human girl—high treason. It’s always unsettling to look into the eyes of someone who would gladly see you dead, and your country in ashes around you. I wish I could say it was an unfamiliar experience.

Pulling my wand from inside my sleeve, I added another statue to the courtyard.

They’re really starting to clutter up the place.

That night Maugrim and I lay sprawled across my fur-heaped bed, his coarse grey coat against my cool white skin. We fed each other from a platter of raw seal meat, rich and fatty, and when the platter was empty I pushed my fingers between his fangs so he could lick off the blood. He met my gaze, his eyes gleaming, and his jaws widened into a sly grin. I laughed and ran my fingers through his fur, and he licked me with his hot tongue.

Our sin was threefold, by my Enemy’s reckoning: fornication (for we were not married, as He considers it), sodomy (since we never felt the need to limit ourselves to the missionary position), and lying with animals (was it still bestiality if neither party was human?). And a fourth, the sin of Lilith: woman on top, literally or metaphorically. For a being without sex, He is rather obsessed with it. He scrutinizes His subjects’ bedroom habits as jealously as a breeder tracks bloodlines. What worse chaos than a world of mongrels? I could tell Him impurity is inevitable, but He always chooses order over entropy. And desire is so dreadfully unruly—it delights in flouting His rules. No wonder He disapproves of it so strongly. No wonder I enjoy it so much.

 

It was Maugrim who brought me word of the human boy’s return. Alone.

At my orders, the wolf led him into the Great Hall. Shafts of cool moonlight fell through the high windows and glowed on the ice-smooth flagstones. Maugrim’s footfalls were quiet as snow, save for the clicking of his nails. The boy’s steps echoed loudly. His clothes and hair were wet, for he wore no coat. He shivered, and his breath made little moist clouds in the air.

“Where are the other humans?” I demanded.

“They’re not far, I swear!” he said. “They’re stopping quite close. At the Beavers’ house. When I left they were having a good old jaw. They’ve probably not even noticed I’ve left.”

“I see. How long do they intend to stay there?”

“Not long, I think. The Beavers said they were taking them to the Stone Table, whatever that is. To meet with a…a Lion. Called Aslan.”

I surged to my feet and slapped the name right out of his mouth.

 

Maugrim set out for the Beavers’ house immediately. “If they have left,” I told him, “make for the Stone Table and observe the enemy’s movements. We will rendezvous in the shadow of the hill. If you overtake the humans on the road, kill them.”

He collected Ash and raced off. The boy watched me with wide eyes as I ordered my travelling cloak brought to me and the reindeer harnessed without bells. “Come,” I told him and did not turn to see if he followed.

Ulli brought the sleigh around. Tiny flakes of snow had begun to fall, melting quickly on the deer’s dark, wet noses. “In with you,” I said to the sullen boy, and he climbed in as before, hunching his shoulders miserably. It was not the warm welcome he had expected—the more fool he!—and by now it had doubtless occurred to him that he had betrayed his siblings for nothing. No one forced you, boy, I thought. You have only yourself to blame.

We rode swiftly through the forest. The whisper of the runners, the creak of the leather harness, and the blowing and panting of the deer were the only sounds under the darkness of the muffled trees. Dawn broke, and soon the sun rose high enough to pierce the branches. Heaps of snow began to slide off green needles, landing with wet plops. I pushed my collar off my neck, where the hot fur clung uncomfortably. More tree branches slipped off their snow, one after the other. Meltwater trickled. On the forest floor, the snow had thinned in places and left balding patches of earth. The sleigh skidded, stuttering before righting itself. A few moments later, the runners caught on something and the sleigh jerked to a halt. Ulli coaxed the reindeer as best he could, but it was no use. We were stuck.

“Curse this thaw!” I said, grinding my teeth. “We’ll have to walk. Cut the reindeer free. They know their way home.”

Slush and mud sucked at my boots as I walked. My cloak hung heavily from my shoulders and its hem was soon matted with dirt. Even after I removed it, my armpits grew damp and sweat gathered beneath my breasts and trickled down my rib cage. Ahead of us, the human stumbled; his hands had been tied behind his back. Ulli poked him with the whip until he righted himself. He had stopped sniveling hours ago. Maybe I would have felt sorry for him if my situation had been less dangerous. Maybe I wouldn’t have.

Ulli grumbled as we walked. He’d had to sling his beard over his shoulder to keep it from trailing in the slush. The air smelled of dirt and crushed grass. A patch of yellow and purple seized my eye—a cluster of crocuses beside the forest track.

“This is no thaw,” said Ulli darkly. “This is Spring.”

“Shut up!” I snapped. A strange, rapid-fire season was unfolding all around us. Oaks and aspens burst into leaf with painful speed. Tulips jostled primroses in their haste to shoot from the ground. As the temperature rose, I felt my powers start to wane. It could mean only one thing: the Lion really had returned at last.

I called our march to a halt in a cool, shadowed valley of fir and yew trees at the foot of the hill. As soon as we stopped, a dark shape hurtled into our midst. It was Ash, her sides heaving and froth falling from her panting mouth.

“He’s dead!” she wailed. “My Queen, Maugrim is dead!” Her legs trembled as she gasped for breath.

“Tell me,” I said in a voice I did not recognize as my own.

“The eldest human killed him, ran his sword right through Maugrim’s heart. They are at the Stone Table—three of them—with Him and His rebels.” Her report unravelled into a howl of sorrow.

I cannot shed tears: I am not human. This doesn’t mean I feel any less. A gaping cavern opened around my heart, as Ash’s high, keening howl rose to meet the falling darkness.

Maugrim, my beloved! My beautiful, brave, clever wolf!

But one cannot mourn in wartime. “Summon all our people to meet me here,” I told Ash. “The time has come to fight.”

She bowed her head, and as it rose, her eyes fell on the boy. “ _Him!_ ” she growled, muscles quivering. “It was his kin who murdered my captain. My Queen, let me kill him to avenge Maugrim!”

“No. Custom must be observed. Leave him to me. You have your orders, Ash.”

With another bow, she loped off to raise my army.

I contemplated the boy, whose head hung low and whose eyelids fluttered. His own danger had barely penetrated his exhaustion. He was of little use to us now, since his siblings were within my Enemy’s protective paws. But no matter how many rebels took the Lion’s side, He still had four thrones to fill to complete the prophecy—four, not three. The boy could be of use to us yet.

Still, there are ways to do such a thing. The Stone Table was best, but any altar would do in a pinch. “There,” I said, pointing to a flat white stone under the shadow of an oak. Ulli tied the boy to the tree while I bared my arms and sharpened my long stone knife. The shadows grew thicker as the sun crept below the treeline.

I threaded my fingers into the boy’s fair hair and pulled sharply, forcing him to raise his chin. His throat was very pale in the twilight, and within it his pulse beat like a bird caught in a net. I looked down at him with new respect. He had been profane, but now I would make him sacred.

Just before blade met flesh, the rebel party fell on us like a whirlwind. Unicorns, centaurs, and eagles trampled into the clearing, beating the air with their wings. My knife was knocked from my hand. I drew my wand, but even I could not bespell them all at a single stroke. Instead I made myself and Ulli indistinguishable from the trees and rocks. They unbound the fainting boy and carried him off to the enemy camp to be reunited with his brother and sisters. Had I fought, I probably could have stopped them. But why bother? The boy was mine, by my Enemy’s own laws.

For Him the loyal, for me the traitors. Edmund had betrayed his own kin, ergo his life belonged to me.

The next day, the Lion and I came to an agreement. Side by side, a stone’s throw from the Table, we stood under the flapping banners of His pavilion and watched the sun shining sharply on the white-capped sea. A week ago, this bay had been ice-locked, and white bears had roamed it freely. You would never know it now, if you didn’t remember how it used to be. Across the bay, Cair Paravel stood on its lonely cliff. I wondered if He’d sent someone round to wipe the cobwebs off the four thrones.

“You know the rules,” I told Him, rather smugly, I admit.

“Yes, Jadis,” He said with a heavy sigh, as if I was a great disappointment to Him.

“It’s your game,” I said tartly.

He turned His heavy head towards me, His expression grave. “It is more than a game, my child. It is the battle between Good and Evil.”

“Yes, but which is which?”

His head shook sadly from side to side, to show how my sophistry wounded Him. There never was any point in arguing. “Just give me the boy!” I snapped.

He sighed mightily and, looking out to sea, said, “I would like to propose a trade.”

Rather than lose the human child, He offered to take his place. How He loved the little children! And children they stayed, no matter how long of limb they grew or how broad at hip or shoulder. Pity the one who decided to grow up, only to be barred from Paradise.

Four children and no Lion. Without Him, I could defeat them easily.

“Agreed,” I said.

***

He is silent now, lying motionless as the flickering torchlight glints off His golden fur. He has not spoked a single word, but His face is sad and patient, as if He would forgive us, if only we would ask Him to.

How infuriating His arrogant piety is! “Do you think you came from nothing?” I ask Him. “You are a born creature, like the rest of us! What lionesses fed you? Hunted for you and gave you the largest share so you could grow up big and strong?”

Cries and jeers echo my words. “Let him be shorn!” I cry. An ogre produces a pair of silver shears and begins to cut the coarse, golden-brown fur of His mane. It falls onto the scarred surface of the Table in hanks and clumps, until His head and shoulders are as close-cropped as the rest of His body. Maneless, He looks smaller. I bend to His ear and whisper, “You are a lioness now.” He will take this for humiliation. He’ll never understand I mean it as a compliment.

I raise my stone knife high, to the moon. Silence echoes across the clearing.

I plunge the knife, swift and true, to His heart.

Jubilation erupts around me. The sacrifice has been successful! The old traditions have been honoured! My people dance and caper, jostling me, but I hardly notice. Tears run hot and salty down my face. The world is mine now. I am safe.

At least, I will be when the humans are dead.

 

My forces attack the rebel encampment immediately. We fall upon them with an avenging fury, and they scramble to defend themselves. Their banners and shields are golden in the torchlight, with a red lion rampant, naturally. Unicorns, leopards, tree-people—I brandish my wand and turn half a dozen of them to stone at a stroke. They resist us valiantly, but they’re losing all the same.

The boy Edmund comes at me like a mad thing, fighting with all the fanaticism of the newly converted. But instead of lunging for my vitals, as I expect, his sword sweeps into my wand, severing it neatly in two.

I scream in rage and draw my knife. “It doesn’t matter how hard you fight,” I hiss at him, “you will always carry that selfish, frightened boy with you, no matter how many times He forgives you.” I slash at him until he falls to the ground, bloodied, but before I can kill him, his brother attacks.

His sword screeches wildly against my knife, steel against stone. I parry, scattering sparks. He staggers, recovers, and we circle each other slowly. So this square-jawed, pink-faced human is Peter. He may be the eldest, but he is still very young. It’s plain this is his first battle, and I imagine he would probably be sick if he could. I might almost feel sorry for him, if he hadn’t murdered Maugrim.

“Go back to your country, Son of Adam,” I say. “This is not your war.”

His jaw remains as square as ever. “My brother and sisters and I will sit on the four thrones at Cair Paravel as Aslan has ordained,” he says. “And we will liberate Narnia from your tyranny.”

“Narnia doesn’t need you, you insufferable idiot!” I look forward to killing him.

We trade more blows, faster and faster, until I can almost taste my victory. And then he looks behind me, and a new expression comes over his face: hope. Relief.

Dread seizes me. I look over my shoulder.

He is rising over the horizon like a sun, a battalion of supporters roaring behind Him. Somehow, His mane has regrown overnight. His brightness hurts my eyes. He gives me a headache.

He comes straight for me, haunches rippling, moving at immeasurable speed. Cats are sprinting hunters. In seconds He is upon me. I raise my knife and scream a curse.

His paws land heavily on my chest, and the muddy earth rises up to strike the back of my head. My crown is jarred loose, and I see it rolling away. Pain drives through my body in a dozen places. My breath is a wheezing gurgle: His claws have pierced a lung. Where is my knife? I can’t feel my hand to know if I’m still holding it. He has me pinned to the ground with His enormous weight, as trapped as any mouse. We are nearly nose to nose, His soft and dark, mine white and pointed. His sweet, warm breath washes over me.

“There is still time, Daughter of Lilith,” He says gently. “My forgiveness is without limit. Repent, my child, and let me save you from your fear and anger.”

I know this story. You Fell and broke, and only He can make you whole again. But the cost of redemption is obedience.

I try to speak, but my lips make no sound. I want to say, You cheated, Aslan. It doesn’t count as a sacrifice if it doesn’t take.

Of course He knew all along. He knew what He was—and wasn’t—offering me under His pavilion on the hill. Knew I would accept, knew He would defeat me in the end. It was all part of His plan. I was just His cat’s-paw. I have been all along.

I take a deep breath, and spit in His face.

He rears back, affronted. The golden fur on His cheeks and muzzle is spattered with my blood. He wipes it away quickly, licking His paw and running it across His face. When He licks it again, my blood will be inside Him, tainting His perfection.

I smile one last time, blood seeping between my teeth.

He licks, wipes.

Licks, wipes.

Cats do so hate to be unclean.


End file.
